Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Chateau Petrus

Great props to Jennifer Haberkorn for some damned fine Front Page-style reporting. She showed up at the doorstep of the named plaintiff in the lawsuit that may gut the Affordable Care Act and, apparently, she didn't move until he let her in. This makes Haberkorn the winner of the blog's first Hildy Johnson Journalism Award.

King has not spoken publicly, but Thursday morning he welcomed a

reporter into his ranch-style home in a middle-income section of

Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is skeptical of the media - offering to let

a reporter in only to "get the chill off" a cold February morning - and

wouldn't discuss the origins of his case.

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"Take Hitler and stick him on the funny pages!"

The Presiding Geniuses at Tiger Beat On The Potomac should buy this woman a large floppy hat immediately.

Once inside, Haberkorn reveals that David King of King v. Burwell is really quite a jackass.

On Facebook, King frequently criticizes Obamacare and immigration

policies and espouses support for limited government, the Second

Amendment and Republican political candidates. He jokes often that the

federal government is watching him. "So do you think NSA, FBI and

the other three letter government workers watch face book? Just wonder

because if they do I'll have a house full of them soon. I guess we will

be able to enjoy a cold beer and make fun of the idiot in the White

House," he posted on Oct. 8, 2013. "I sued the irs over this bull shit

so ... get ready."

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OK, so she picked this up from his Facebook account, but that's rather like being invited in, right? Plus she went to him in real life to ask him about his virtual wingnut persona, so that strikes me as a decent thing to do as well. Especially since his Facebook persona is so lively.

A review of King's public social media accounts show he is a proud

grandfather who loves his family, enjoys cooking and sharing photos from

conservative blogs. One image shows a photo from the movie "Back to the

Future" with instructions to the time traveler: "Marty, there is no

time to lose. You must go back in time and give Obama's dad a condom."

So what Haberkorn's stubbornness pretty much reveals is that all the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the other real architects of this meritless lawsuit did was find some suckers who spend most of their time marinating in the deluge of special sauce sloshing around in the wingnut media bubble and be convinced of pretty much anything as long as it can be blamed on the Kenyan usurper in the White House. (As Greg Sargent points out, neither King nor the organizations for which he's fronting will comment about how the lawsuit came to be.) Here, for example, is King's own explanation of what "his" lawsuit is really all about.

King argues that because the Obama administration is illegally making

him eligible for subsidies, he has to comply with the individual

mandate. If he didn't get the subsidy, insurance would be "unaffordable"

to him under the health law and he wouldn't have to worry about the

individual mandate's penalties.

He doesn't quite know how, but he is being oppressed.

The lawsuit is a dangerous act of charlatanism that is too damned close to succeeding. On King's Facebook page, Haberkorn also found a touching post about King's meeting with a father and his terminally ill little boy. If King's phony lawsuit succeeds, a lot of people around the country are going to get to do that.